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Hidden Forces

Get the edge with Hidden Forces where media entrepreneur and financial analyst Demetri Kofinas gives you access to the people and ideas that matter, so you can build financial security and always stay ahead of the curve.
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Now displaying: November, 2019
Nov 25, 2019

In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and of Russian Studies and History at NYU. Dr. Cohen has received several scholarly honors over his lengthy career, including two Guggenheim fellowships and a National Book Award nomination, and was, for many years, a consultant and on-air commentator on Russian affairs for CBS News. Former CBS evening news anchor Dan Rather has referred to Stephen Cohen as “one of, if not the premier expert on the old Soviet Union, Russia, and Russian history in al of what we call Western civilization.”

We live in dangerous times, not only in international relations but also in domestic affairs. Russian fear-mongering and gratuitous insults leveled at Russian President, Vladimir Putin serve as powerful political litmus tests in contemporary America. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a presidential candidate for the Democratic party, was recently accused by former Secretary of State and two-time presidential candidate Hillary Clinton of being a “Russian Asset.” Meanwhile, Donald Trump is consistently chided for what his critics assert is “the conspicuous absence of any criticism of Vladimir Putin.” 

In the years since Russia’s occupation and annexation of Crimea, Stephen Cohen has become, in the words of one writer, “the most controversial Russia expert in America.” He’s been openly critical of NATO expansion since the idea was first proposed in the early-to-mid 90’s, and though this criticism puts him in good company, his views on Ukraine and what he sees as America’s role in inciting Russian aggression have left him marginalized and often times disparaged as a “Russian apologist.” 

Nonetheless, it is Stephen Cohen’s contention that American is now dangerously close to “War with Russia,” the title that he has chosen for his most recent book, which consists of a series of commentaries on current affairs originally published at The Nation Magazine. He views American foreign policy towards the post-Soviet Union as not only needlessly antagonistic but recklessly endangering of American national security, putting us at the greatest risk of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

You can access this week’s overtime segment (an early release of Demetri’s conversation with physicist Sean Carroll), transcript, and rundown through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers also gain access to our overtime RSS feed, which can be easily be added to your favorite podcast application. 

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Nov 18, 2019

In Episode 110 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chief Investment Officer of Hayman Capital Management and founding member of the “Committee on the Present Danger: China,” about the gathering threat posed to Western, liberal democracies and open societies by the Chinese Communist Party. Kyle explains how the CCP and its state champions have been using US capital markets to fund the development of China’s armed forces, the threats posed by a Chinese operated 5G network, as well as concerns about the acquisition and use of Americans’ genomic data by the Chinese government. Kyle also goes into detail about his thesis on Hong Kong, its peg to the USD, as well as the fragility of its banking system. Additional topics include the “reeducation camps” and reports of organ harvesting in Xinjiang, the Chinese social credit system, the Federal Reserve Repo market, and Kyle’s outlook for the macroeconomy. 

The second part of this discussion is available to Hidden Forces Patreon subscribers. You can access that part of the conversation, as well as the rundown and transcript to this week’s episode by subscribing to one of our three content tiers. All subscribers also gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily be added to your favorite podcast application.

Hidden Forces is listener funded. We rely on your support to keep the program free of corporate sponsors.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Nov 11, 2019

In Episode 109 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Financial Times Global Business Columnist, Rana Faroohar about her latest book dealing with the worlds of Big Tech and finance. 

We are living in a dramatic period of societal change and uncertainty that most generations rarely get to experience. The changes we are experiencing are being driven primarily by a particular set of Internet-enabled technologies and businesses that are undergoing a rapid phase of consolidation. 

The last time Americans saw anything similar was during the late 19th century. This was a period where people’s relationships to nature and to the land were being radically reshaped by the railroads, industrial capitalism, and urbanization. Their sense of time and space, their relationships to their communities, and to each other were being profoundly reordered and this produced an unprecedented amount of anxiety. Like today, this period coincided with a rise in populism and calls for heavy-handed regulation of what had become industrial monopolies. These monopolies were able to set prices and use anti-competitive tactics to bankrupt their competitors. Independent oil refiners, for instance, had to sell out to John D. Rockefeller, because he not only got preferential rates on his oil shipments, but Standard Oil was also getting rebates from the railroads on every barrel shipped by his competitors. And these types of anti-competitive practices were going on across the board in steel, tobacco, etc.  

It took a long time for the public to catch up, and for journalists like Ida Tarbell to emerge, who could begin to bring a necessary level of clarity to what was happening. Something similar is happening today with journalists and authors like Rana Foroohar and Shoshana Zuboff. The battlelines of 21st-century capitalism and liberalism are being radically redrawn. If we want to have a say in what this world looks like, we will need to educate ourselves and others about what’s gone wrong and how we can start to fix it. This episode is a step in that direction.

You can access this week’s overtime segment, transcript, and rundown through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers also gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily be added to your favorite podcast application.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Nov 4, 2019

In Episode 108 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Pauline Brown, the former Chairman of North America for LVMH, the world’s leading luxury goods company. Pauline has over thirty years’ experience acquiring, building, and leading some of the world’s most influential, luxury brands. In this conversation, she shares insights about how anyone can strengthen and grow his or her own aesthetic intelligence and apply that intelligence towards enhancing the quality and prosperity of one’s life and business.

Pauline’s case for aesthetic intelligence rests on four basic points. The first is simply that aesthetics matter, not only in life but also in business. The second is that aesthetic intelligence can be cultivated. In fact, each of us possesses far more capacity than we use; aesthetic vision and leadership also have the power to transform companies and even entire sectors, as has been proven time and again by companies like Apple, Dyson, and others. Lastly, in the absence of aesthetics, most businesses are susceptible to potentially fatal challenges. In other words, when a company’s aesthetics fail, so does the company.  

Her overall message is that aesthetics matter and that they can be cultivated. As Pauline says: “Although I believe that each of us has the potential to boost our aesthetic intelligence, it takes time and effort. It is just like developing other muscles.”  In this episode, we learn approaches and concrete exercises for building one’s “aesthetic muscles” and using them to win over customers, starting with exercises for enhancing what Pauline Brown calls (1) attunement, which she defines as “developing a higher consciousness of one’s environment and the effect of its stimuli;” (2) interpretation, which means “translating one’s emotional reactions (both positive and negative) to sensorial stimuli into thoughts that form the basis of an aesthetic position, preference, or expression;” (3) articulation, or expressing the “aesthetic ideals for one’s brand, product, or service such that team members not only grasp the vision but can execute on it with precision;” and (4) curation, or “organizing, integrating, and editing a wide variety of inputs and ideals to achieve maximum impact.” 

According to Pauline Brown: “When it comes to aesthetics, editorial command is all-important; as Coco Chanel said, “Elegance is refusal.”  

You can access the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers are granted access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

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